April 5, 2011

Hey Everyone!

Bar none this was the craziest week of my mission! So I will get started by saying that everything was going smooth until Friday-ish. This Saturday and Sunday we had the opportunity to hear from the Prophet and I absolutely loved it. So much happened this weekend I am sorry if the letter seems to be a little disorganized but...here we go!

So this Thursday I had the opportunity to work with Elder Garcia for the afternoon in my sector. We visited all of our best investigators and had a really good time. Elder Garcia is leaving tomorrow and so I really enjoyed being able to work with him one last time. I have to go back to the office in a bit so I should be seeing him one last time. His plans are as follows; Go to Santiago and have his surgery, finish his mission (6 weeks0 in Santiago East Mission as an MTC Teacher and a normal missionary for 2 weeks, go back to Ecuador, come back here in September to Chile to visit, Finish learning English and come live int eh USA and get married/study at BYU. I am not too sad because I know that I will see him again but it is sad that the next time I see him he won't be a missionary.

I really enjoyed conference and had an amazing time watching it with the President, his wife, the Fischbecks and the assistants at the Stake Center here in Concepcion. It was good but the 2 sessions I enjoyed the most were the Priesthood session and the Sunday afternoon session. I LOVED Richard G. Scotts talk about his wife and appreciating her and doing the little things to make sure she knew how much he loved her. I also loved the talk by the Prophet in Priesthood session about marriage. We watched the priesthood session with President and he was cracking up the whole time and kept joking with us about getting married after the mission. The theme of the Conference seemed to be Marriage and the family, and as I was watching it I was really thinking about how I could relate it to my life right now. I realized that I need to focus harder on finding families and couples that can go to the temple one day and make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father. I LOVED CONFERENCE! After the 1st session in the morning we had a baptism of an 11 year old kid named Lucho. We had been working with him for a while and we finally got permission from his family so that he could get baptized and it was a really neat experience. We did the baptism together with Elder Stermetz (my best friend from the MTC) and his companion. President Humphrey spoke in the baptismal service and it was just a really great service.

So today we heard about transfers and I thought that I was safe because we were having success and because I didn't have a lot of time in the sector. I got a call at 7:40 am today from the Zone Leaders and they told me that I had been transferred to the mission office/Universitario Ward as Senior Companion. I talked to Elder Garcia and he told me it was a last second decision that President made and that it kind of shocked everyone. I will be working everyday in the office until we finish all of our work and then after that I will be able to leave and work in my sector. There is a lot of responsibility being in the office and a lot of meetings with the President and i am more than excited/nervous/I don't know, it will be an adventure. I also will be living with the assistants and 2 other Elder in a really nice apartment in central of Concepcion. I will be replacing Elder Reed (my companion from the MTC) and I will be working with Elder Page. I know it is possible to have success in the office but I also know that I will have to scrape for every ounce of success that I want to have in the upcoming months, but I am willing to sacrifice everything for this work.

I love you guys and am so glad that I have your support. I know that this is the Lords work and that this is the only church that has the authority to act in Christs name...there is no other church with this power on the face of the earth. I love what I am doing and I know I am here with a divine purpose. Thanks for everything...

Yours Truly,

Elder Cody Dastrup